Kumar - since we are all friends know I would like you to clarify your position that the search market is overcrowded? With over 80% of the worlds data in unstructured flat files(vs. relational data)and growing daily, the market potential is tremendous and growing more so for the internet and corporate intranet. - beyond fulcf and MS (in its own niche), who else is competing in this space? FULCF does not have the potential to play in this fast moving market - they are an italian owned canadian company with legacy technology. In contrast Verity is in the heart of silicon valley and the proof to their nimbleness and execution is in the agreements they have inked with netscape, informix, cisco.
you also mention some potential acquirers - oracle, adobe - while partially correct your missing some key pieces so its incomplete information. Oracle is not "in bed" with MS by any means - only Sun and netscape hate MS more. As to Oracle not doing well - Oracle has a bil in cash and regardelss of the short term movement of the stock, they can purchase just about anyone they want - the rumour is netscape , so if they want verity, they can have it. Unfortuneately Oracle has its own cognitive text search engine called context which works only with its own databases, a good product, i have used it myself, thats why Oracle is conspicuously absent from veritys list of clients. As far as the 4 yr. old attempt to buy verity by frame, well can anyone recall what the big players internet strategy was then? they didnt have one - things have changed a bit since then . If Courtot wanted to sell, Adobe would be a buyer since it fits in well with its current product mix and gives them a stronger internet strategy. |
